Investigation begins after villagers claim 'witch' gave birth to LIZARD

WTF: A village in Indonesia has been left stunned after claiming a local woman gave birth to a lizard instead of a baby [CEN]

A team of experts has arrived in the remote Indonesian village of Oenunto after locals claimed a woman went to hospital to give birth and delivered a lizard instead of a child.

The allegations against 31-year-old Debi Nubatonis led to hysterical debate on the Internet as well as Ms Nubatonis and her family being accused of dark magic.

But now the Chief Medical Officer of nearby Kupang City, Dr Messe Ataupa, said that a team has been sent in to investigate and clear it up.

Although they have yet to present their final report, the team have begun to explore some possibilities.

Dr Ataupa said: "It is clearly a nonsense to suggest that the woman gave birth to a lizard. There has never been a proven case of a living organism from one species giving birth to a different species, it just doesn't happen.

LIZARD: Locals believe the woman is a witch despite the ridiculous claims [CEN]

“It is clearly a nonsense to suggest that the woman gave birth to a lizard”

Chief Medical Officer Dr Messe Ataupa

"We have spoken to locals who confirmed that the woman showed all the symptoms of pregnancy, and it does seem according to the midwife that she appeared to be going into labour.

"However we believe it was just a phantom pregnancy or pseudocyesis where there was never a child although the woman would have had many of the symptoms."

He said that a small percentage of women who had phantom pregnancies also experienced labour and it was possible that there might have been some discharge which if it had landed on the lizard might have led to the confusion and the belief from the midwife that the woman had given birth to a gecko.

He said: "If there was no baby, it might be possible that she just jumped to the wrong conclusion."

The midwife Josephine Lydia Hellen Wadu was the one who started the latest alert when she insisted on taking the lizard to the Oenuntono Health Centre and filed a report to claim it had been born from the young woman.